Summer School, Day 2: 11th August

This time we looked further into what a sketchbook is and what makes one up. Kat brought out a huge pile of old sketchbooks from previous students and I'll be honest; what I saw slightly surprised me. I had known that sketchbooks could be creative and that the purpose was to make it your own, but I saw that they could be more than just sketches with a few scribbled annotations — they can be personal and busy and crowded; sketchbooks are made unique through different formats and ways. Pages can be ripped, burned, cut and coloured; or they can be left crisp and white, which is what I've always done and which is what some people prefer. 

The content of each sketchbook differs from person to person and as I was looking through the sketchbooks I selected and was asked to comment on them, I realised that it is sometimes difficult to make each page different to the last. Below are a few pages/sketchbooks I enjoyed and why.

This page was one of my favourites because of this section here, the cording. I don't know if this was intentional but it looks like the shape of a tree, which I enjoyed because of a similar silhouette I painted in my sketchbook, and the colours spattered over it are a lovely combination in my opinion.

This sketchbook was very personal and when I flicked through it, I felt a little like I was intruding and that I shouldn't really be looking. The pages made me start thinking about including some more personal aspects into my own sketchbook and to possibly start including my own troubles, like this student did. 

I loved this section, due to the amount of colours and how intricate and delicate the weaving appears. Another aspect I enjoy is the number of different materials involved, in my opinion it shows thought and creativity and makes the weaving look even better due to how it mixes it up — I would possibly like to learn this technique myself. 

After looking at the sketchbooks we discussed with Kat what was possibly missing from our own sketchbooks and one thing mentioned (as discussed last entry) was a personal aspect which I think needs to be mixed more into my annotations. Questions asked were related to family, friends and possibly objects; I realised that I needed to start writing in my annotations why certain people, places and objects were being included in my sketchbook, what/how much they mean to me, who people are to me and even how we met.